Must Know Financial Analyst Interview Questions

Financial Analyst, what immediately strikes you on hearing this term? A person who is responsible for analyzing and managing an organization’s money.

In a point of fact, in addition to managing the investments and cashflow, a financial analyst is also responsible to foresee the financial future of an organization. But before vesting this huge responsibility onto your new hire, vet them with the help of a gruelling assessment platform that provides you with a 360° dissection of your candidate’s skills, and overall job-fit psychometry.

The job of a financial analyst is not just about creating macros and pivot tables on excel, rather they are responsible for businesses to make sound financial decisions against all odds. Hence make sure you ask both technical as well as behavioural questions in the interview as you should understand both sides of the coin before you make your strategic hiring decision.

Technical Questions

Although the exact role and responsibilities of a financial analyst varies from one industry to another, it is always ideal to start with the basics. Make sure that your new hire has a good hold over the fundamentals of financial analysis.

What is working capital?

What is a long-term liability?

How do you calculate basic earnings per share?

What is the best metric to use to analyze a company’s stock?

Can you explain why financial reports do not list dividends on the income statement?

Role Specific Questions

After the candidate picks up the pace, move onto decision making and situational based questions as they give you direct insights of your candidate’s analytical and critical thinking skills.

What are the key factors financial analysts should consider when evaluating prospective investments?

Which statements (income, balance, cash flow) would you reference to assess the company’s liabilities and assets and why?

How does increasing accounts receivables impact the company’s balance sheet? And how do you gather data when no raw information is given to you?

A company’s cash conversion cycle is 60 days. Its days of sales outstanding is 45 days and days of inventory outstanding is 73 days. What is the days of payables outstanding?

Behavioural Interview Questions To Ask A Financial Analyst

Hence is not just about the skills, a financial analyst should also be able to deal with people, resolve conflicts and be able to work under stressful situations. It is important to analyze the psychometry of the candidate. At times, some financial analysts may also have to act as gate-keepers, deal with salespeople and clients and involve in networking. In such situations, it is very important for hiring managers to check if a financial analyst can remain cool in adverse situations and diffuse these situations positively.

Give an example of a time you found a mistake among a large set of data

What was the most difficult problem you’ve had to solve and how did you do it?

What do you think was your most successful project?

Describe a time when your knowledge of current events helped you produce better results

Tell me about a time you had to handle large amounts of data. How did you ensure
accuracy?

Have you ever fallen behind schedule for a project? What did you do to catch up?

In case of conflict of opinions, how do you convince your manager or a senior financial analyst to agree with your decision?

Tell us about a time you made a bad financial decision. How would you avoid that
happening again?

Hold on!

Before you invite your candidates for an on-site interview, assess them in the first place.